Hungary's 'peace mission' reveals a split within the EU

By: Azhar Azam

The EU foreign affairs meeting was held in Brussels on August 29. The informal summit originally scheduled under the rotating presidency of the EU council, Hungary, was moved to the Belgian capital over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's "peace missions" to peacefully resolve the Ukraine conflict.

"We have to send a signal, even if this is a symbolic signal," said Josep Borrell, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, announcing the change of venue. Stripping Budapest of its right to hold the meeting prompted a swift condemnation from Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto who said, "What a fantastic response they have come up with…it feels like being in a kindergarten."

While this is unfortunate in the 21st century that a country is criticized, penalized and stigmatized for making efforts to start peace negotiations and seek a diplomatic solution of the conflict, it also reveals a clear divide in the Union.

Budapest has a keen interest in resolving the conflict given it is one of Ukraine's neighboring countries, and is directly exposed to economic shocks as well spillover effects of the conflict. Yet Budapest's concerns were not addressed, leading into a messy situation and differences within the EU.

Szijjarto is critical of Europe's peace approach and policy of following the U.S., a country with a long history of fanning the flames of war the world over. Stating Europe had no peace strategy and there was no consensus across the continent on key issues, Szijjarto said that he didn't understand why the continent was copying America with no voice of its own.

His remarks echoed those of French President Emmanuel Macron who has been urging the EU not to become a U.S. "vassal," saying it should become independent and self-reliant. Szijjarto's Facebook post, complaining about Brussels failing to ensure oil supplies for its own members, indicated a growing frustration and declining trust in the bloc's ability to protect interests of its fellow states.

The Hungarian foreign minister views all this as a fallout of Orban's multi-nation trips to promote peace. Early last month, Orban launched his "peace mission," meeting the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and asking him to consider a ceasefire to speed up the peace talks and make his contributions to solve the biggest EU challenge. Hungary's president also offered his country's support to modernize Ukraine's economy, describing his pro-peace approach and intent to play a role to rebuild Ukraine.

While Orban's trip to Ukraine was itself a silent endorsement of his peace efforts by Kyiv, in a follow-up of his "peace mission," he went to Russia and discussed the prospects of a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict. Some European officials criticized him even though he has been a longtime proponent of a cessation of hostilities to secure Europe and several other European leaders had also made such attempts.

The White House voiced concern, asserting the visit would "not advance the cause of peace" although the mission had just begun, exposing America's efforts to derail any potential peace process in addition to undressing its restiveness about the success of a ceasefire in a conflict that is helping the U.S. arms industry to thrive, yet ravaging European economies.

In the final leg of his trip, Orban arrived in China, which has also offered a peace plan to discuss a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Stating it was in the interest of all countries to seek a political solution through an early ceasefire, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that the international community should create conditions for the resumption of direct dialogue and negotiations between the two sides and provide assistance.

China's Ukraine peace plan – covering important areas such as respecting sovereignty of all countries, resuming talks after ceasing hostilities and protecting civilians – has been widely debated and supported by countries worldwide. This underscored the global embrace of Beijing's peace proposal and the world's rejection of the U.S. propaganda that China was helping Russia by supplying dual-use goods.

The Ukraine conflict has not only inflicted serious damage on Europe but also the entire world. This "wartime psychosis," fueled by the U.S., could trigger a hemorrhage of the European economy, making it even more dependent on America. Moreover, a prolonged conflict will adversely affect the rest of the world.

A broad split within the EU on the shift of the meeting's venue and an intensifying belief across many European countries on the negotiated solution of the conflict is an explicit renunciation of the U.S.-imposed pro-war approach on the bloc, revealing the intent of several EU nations to regain the autonomy of developing an independent policy, which serves their own interests and bring peace to the region.

*My article that first appeared at the CGTN

EU should extend strong commitment with Africa’s industrialization

By: Azhar Azam

Africa is blessed with enormous natural capital. The continent holds 8% and 12% of the world’s natural gas and oil as well as 40% of the world’s gold; it is estimated to have 30% of the world’s critical minerals and has potential to produce green hydrogen with 60% of the world’s best solar resources.

Still, the continent is the world's most impoverished region and poor headcount continues to rise. In 2014, just 14% of the world's poor lived in Africa; in 2019, the number rose to 57% in 2019. Population growth, wars and conflicts, climate change, diseases, inadequate agriculture infrastructure and unjust trade structure with America and Europe heavily subsidizing their agriculture sectors have caused poverty crises across the continent to aggravate.

Other factors such as gold smuggling worth $30 billion every year, global economic conditions, geopolitical rivalries and debt service payments have contributed to poverty too, leaving African governments with limited financial resources to channel funds to fight poverty and climate change.

Slower economic growth, after it averaged 5% between 1999 and 2014 and brought poverty down from 57% to 38%, is also a major reason behind rising poverty. According to Africa's Pulse most recent report, economic growth in the region is likely to bounce back and reach 3.4% in 2024 and 3.6% in 2025; this expansion it warns will be "insufficient to have a significant effect on poverty reduction."

With $6.5 trillion of natural resources and 65% of the world's uncultivated arable land, resource-rich countries have no excuse to remain poor, said African Development Bank Group President Dr Akinwumi Adesina last year, noting the Bank and its partners had provided $4.6 billion to develop dozens of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones in 26 countries.

As demand for some of key substances such as lithium, between 2017 and 2022 tripled while that of cobalt and nickel jumped 70% and 40%, critical raw materials such as cobalt, copper, magnesium and lithium – critical to global energy transition and are found in abundance in the continent – urges regional countries develop a joint plan to capitalize on the opportunity to promote green industrialization in Africa.

“Imagine the potential if African minerals are processed into African batteries, installed into African cars that are driven across the continent and the world,” said UN Economic Commission for Africa’s deputy executive secretary, Antonio Pedro at a recent event in Addis Ababa, stressing this would accelerate the deployment of renewable energy and electrification of transport systems, generate jobs and transform Africa into a competitive hub for green industrialization.

The European Union (EU) lacks most of these resources and needs them to sustain their strong industrial base. Critical raw materials indeed were also one of six themes of the EU Global Gateway Forum 2023 for their crucial role in achieving the Union's climate ambitions. Given the bloc has financial strength and technical expertise in developing key industries, it could be a valuable African partner for the continental industrialization.

In the G-20 Compact with Africa conference in Berlin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced to invest €4 billion in Africa's green energy through 2030 on top of the EU €3.4 billion. But the package omitted industrialization, an area where the continent's interests really lie over its potential to create jobs and accelerate inclusive and sustained growth, diversify the economy and reduce poverty.

Africa also seeks to leverage green hydrogen for its industrialization and decarbonization. It is ideally positioned to produce three-fifths of the world’s green hydrogen but accounts for just 1% of the global solar generation capacity. Africa's geographic proximity to Europe and unique position to flip the script on fossil fuel could pave the way for a robust Africa-EU partnership.

Since continent has a potential to produce $1.06 trillion of green hydrogen yet needs massive upfront investments, the EU investments can help foster green industrialization in Africa where foreign direct investment (FDI), after nearly halving in 2022 against a record $80 billion in 2021, was almost flat at $48 billion in 2023.

Under the Global Gateway, Brussels has announced a €150 billion of investment package for Africa including scaling up African hydrogen production and exporting it to Europe. The initiative aims to accelerate Africa's green and digital transition, sustainable growth including regional economic integration and industrialization and decent job creation; more focus should be given to industrialization for it will increase productivity, raise living standards and lift people out of poverty in Africa.

Africa is slated to play a pivotal role in the achievement of the EU goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. While Brussels should address Africa's concerns such as its “protectionist” carbon border tax on goods such as steel and cement – which could hamper the continental GDP, developing countries' exports to Europe and efforts to raise investments – the bloc must actively support Africa’s industrialization to make this partnership a win-win cooperation.

*My article (unedited) that first appeared in the "Brussels News."

How Conservatives drove UK into Islamophobia?

By: Azhar Azam

The violent protests in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in the seaside English town of Southport are showing no signs of unwinding after social media posts spread disinformation that the killer was a Muslim migrant. Soon the far-right “thugs” attacked the mosque and police, burning down a police van with 27 officers taken to the hospital.

Since then, anti-immigrants rioters have been looting shops, targeting hotels housing asylum seekers, assaulting mosques and ethnic minority communities especially Muslims and their businesses, setting cars alight, vandalizing the properties and throwing petrol bombs at law enforcement forces.

Shocked by the worst strife in the UK in more than a decade, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to crush the violence against vulnerable groups with full force. "Whatever the apparent motivation, this is not protest, it is pure violence and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities.”

While newly-elected Starmer makes efforts to quell violence, the Conservatives’ role in fueling the anti-Muslim sentiments couldn’t be ignored. In 2018, Boris Johnson’s derogatory characterization of Muslim women wearing burka, a loose enveloping garment, as “letter box” and “bank robbers” intensified hate crimes against Muslims, stoking Islamophobia in Britain.

Same year, the UK’s first female cabinet minister Syeda Warsi complained that Islamophobia had become “very widespread” in the country after several Conservatives were found to have made or shared offensive remarks about Muslims. In 2019, she again warned the Tories were becoming “institutionally Islamophobic.”

This time, the party suspended 14 Conservative members for posting anti-Islam posts but didn’t take measures to tackle the dangerous phenomenon, allowing extremism and radicalization to grow. Even Dame Sara Khan, former adviser to three UK prime ministers, recently singled out her own Conservative governments for triggering this unprecedented violence because they didn’t allocate enough resources to the areas struggling with extremism.

Since long, academics too have been warning the conservatives about growing far-right activism in the society and their ambivalence to control such far-right racist groups. But they ignored these caveats and let the UK tip into violence on their watch.

British media’s role has also been controversial in the recent violence against people of color for it portrayed the anti-Muslim riots as a clash between far-right and Muslims. Phraseologies such as “Allahu Akbar” and assertions like the rioters were “justified in their anger” by British far-right activist Tommy Robinson or putting forward a political justification for anti-immigration riots by the conservative Lord Davies, though he later on apologized, speaks of a strong buildup of Islamophobia in the UK.

Such instances align these media outlets and campaigners with those who once abysmally described Islamophobia as “an entirely rational response to an illiberal, vindictive and frankly fascistic creed.” The downplaying of the threat by representing the violence as “deep-rooted anger” and “festering resentment” do not augur well for the UK and the British society either given these attempts would till the ground for racial hatred and pit communities against each other, intensifying the country’s challenges.

As the situation subsides, the Labor government must also assess the circumstances such as “unmet primary needs” that have driven youth into conducting extreme racist activities, challenging social cohesion and forcing black and brown people to live in fear.

After the global financial crisis, the Conservative governments made austerity the part and parcel of their fiscal policy. Its successive prime ministers chose to sync themselves with the guiding principle set by their ancestors and constrained their financial resources through tax cuts, which led to curtailed public funding and real wage stagnation.

By the end of the Tory rule, stalled productivity, the biggest fall in spending power over the last 70 years, a sharp rise in poverty of 22%, deafening cost of living crisis and high inflation had added insult to the injury, exacerbating the UK economic challenges and providing a ripe ground for civil strife.

The newly-elected prime minister needs to quickly draw a lesson from the mistakes of his predecessors who ruined British society by turning a blind eye on Islamophobia and undermined the economy through tax cuts while humming the British values internationally without making any significant efforts to establish them domestically.

For more than a decade, the Conservatives ruled Britain yet rather than promoting interfaith harmony and addressing Britons’ economic concerns, they exploited the societal rifts to cling to power. As a result, Starmer has to contest a two-pronged challenge: rein in Islamophobia and racial prejudice to help the Muslim and other communities guard themselves against the grinding hatred and to bring back UK from the cusp of extremism as well as hike taxes, which may be a politically risky decision but is crucial to reinstate the UK economy and curb the growing sense of despair in British citizens.

*My article (unedited) that appeared in the "Brussels Morning" and the Express Tribune with the title "How Tories drove UK into Islamobhobia?"